DW100 writes: ICANN, the body in charge with overseeing the management and rollout of new top level domains such as.porn,.adult and.sucks, has asked the FTC to investigate whether the registry running.sucks is acting illegally, after concerns raised by ICANN's own in-house legal team it is selling the domains to brand owners in a 'predatory' manner.

An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was written in 1986. It's incredibly outdated, yet it still governs many internet-related rights for U.S. citizens. Microsoft has now challenged Congress to update the legislation for how online communications work in 2015. The company is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the government over a court order to release emails stored in a foreign country to U.S. authorities. In a new legal brief (PDF), Microsoft says, "For an argument that purports to rest on the 'explicit text of the statute,’ the Government rewrites an awful lot of it. Congress never intended to reach, nor even anticipated, private communications stored in a foreign country when it enacted [the ECPA]." In an accompanying blog post, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote, "Until U.S. law is rewritten, we believe that the court in our case should honor well-established precedents that limit the government’s reach from extending beyond U.S. borders.... To the contrary, it is clear Congress’s intent was to ensure that your digital information is afforded the same legal protections as your physical documents and correspondence, a principle we at Microsoft believe should be preserved."

Lucas123 writes: When two gun stores attempted to sell the nation's first integrated smart gun, the iP1, gun advocacy groups were charged in media reports with organizing protests that lead to the stores pulling the guns from their shelves or reneging on their promise to sell them in the first place. But, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation say they do not oppose smart gun technology, which they call "authorized user recognition" firearms. "We do oppose any government mandate of this technology, however. The marketplace should decide," Mike Bazinet, a spokesman for the NSSA, wrote in an email reply to Computerworld. However, the argument for others goes that if stores begin selling smart guns, then legislators will draft laws requiring the technology.

An anonymous reader writes: Every month we submit status reports to upper management. On the infrastructure side, these reports tend to be "Hey, we met our service level agreements... again." IT infrastructure is now a lot like the electric company. Nobody thanks the electric company the lights come on but they have plenty of colorful adjectives to describe them when the power is off.

What is the best way to construct a compelling story for upper management so they'll appreciate the hard work that an IT department does. They don't seem particularly impressed with functioning systems because they expect functioning systems. The extensive effort to design and implement reliable systems has also made IT boring and dull. What types of summaries can you provide upper management to help them appreciate IT infrastructure and the money they spend on the services it provides?

netbuzz writes: A band called netcat is generating buzz in software circles by releasing its debut album as a Linux kernel module (among other more typical formats.) Why? “Are you ever listening to an album, and thinking ‘man, this sounds good, but I wish it crossed from user-space to kernel-space more often!’ We got you covered,” the band says on its Facebook page. “Our album is now fully playable as a loadable Linux kernel module.”

llebeel writes: Malwarebytes has uncovered a way for hackers to steal Steam accounts while bypassing an additional security measure.

When logging in on a PC you haven't used before, Steam Guard will appear as a window asking for a verification code that will have been sent to your email address. Without the code, you can't log in. Malwarebytes claims to have found that scammers have come up with a way to get around this security measure.

annga writes: As the result of Heartbleed OpenSSL Vulnerability there are recommendations everywhere to change our passwords in many major websites as Google, Yahoo,Microsoft etc. and it is also appears that Android was exposed to this too. But is it realistic that someone could track my passwords without Trojan on my computer or on the server? As far as I understand my unencrypted data goes directly to the server and the hacker should be able to intercept it afterwards, which seems unlikely. Another issue is that we expected something to be encrypted and it was not, but should I really rush to change my passwords?

redletterdave writes: Amazon on Thursday announced it will acquire digital comics agency ComiXology for an undisclosed sum. But why does the world's biggest online retailer care so much about comic books? Well, that's because the deal—and ComiXology, as a whole—isn't just about comics. ComiXology is pioneering the art of digital storytelling, and attempting to bring these tools to the masses. With Amazon, ComiXology gets a big boost towards its goal of adding a third dimension to the two-dimensional world of books, comics and graphic novels.

smaxp writes: The iPhone has been a fashion statement for years, but with market share beginning to slide, Apple needs to re-capture consumers' attention,

Tim Cook summed up Apple’s definition of innovation in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams a little over a year ago:

"Our whole role in life is to give you something you didn’t know you wanted. And then once you get it,
you can’t imagine your life without it"

But Apple has not done this in a long time – not since January 27, 2010, when it first introduced the iPad. Introducing an innovative new product category generates a wave of public attention that lifts sales of other product categories. A fashion-conscious consumer in the market for a new smartphone is more likely to consider paying a premium for an iPhone if the buzz on social media and in the press is propagating Apple’s latest new and innovative product category.

astroengine writes: After a decade of searching, astronomers have found a second dwarf-like planet far beyond Pluto and its Kuiper Belt cousins, a presumed no-man’s land that may turn out to be anything but. How Sedna, which was discovered in 2003, and its newly found neighbor, designated 2012 VP 2113 by the Minor Planet Center, came to settle in orbits so far from the sun is a mystery. Sedna comes no closer than about 76 times as far from the sun as Earth, or 76 astronomical units. The most distant leg of its 11,400-year orbit is about 1,000 astronomical units. Newly found VP 2113’s closest approach to the sun is about 80 astronomical units and its greatest distance is 452 astronomical units. The small world is roughly 280 miles (450 kilometers) wide, less than half the estimated diameter of Sedna.

kentjohansen writes: According to Forbrukslånguide.no, Norway is one of the most debt-ridden countries in the world. At first, this might appear as strange, especially as Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. However, there are many financial products available and the banks don't ask too many questions before giving out loans.

DavidGilbert99 writes: They are capable of absorbing light 30% more effectively than normal plants and could be used to monitor pollution or the distribution of chemical weapons. The bionic plants integrate carbon nanotubes into the leaves of regular plants, and the scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were able to replicate and improve upon a plant's natural ability to photosynthesise.

UnderAttack writes: A vulnerability in many Linksys routers, allowing for unauthenticated code execution, is used to mass-exploit various Linksys routers right now. Infected routers will start scanning for vulnerable systems themselves, leading to a very fast spread of this "worm".

An anonymous reader writes: As the rumors surrounding Apple's mythical iWatch continue to swell, Apple has continued to hire folks with deep biomedical and sensor technology expertise.

A previously unreported addition to Apple's growing cadre of medical device experts is Marcelo Malini Lamego, who began working at Apple this January.

Before joining Apple this past January, Lamego spent 8 years as the CTO of Cercacor, a medical devices company with a focus on developing noninvasive monitoring technologies.

As CTO, Lamego spearheaded the company's engineering and R&D efforts, where he helped develop the Pronto-7, an award-winning and noninvasive medical device capable of measuring a patient's oxygen saturation and hemoglobin levels, along with a patient's pulse rate. The Pronto-7 is currently being sold by Masimo, a company specializing in noninvasive patient monitoring technologies.